


A matter of love

by I_am_sorry



Category: Hockey RPF, Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Divorce, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_sorry/pseuds/I_am_sorry
Summary: Afterwards (many, many months afterwards), as a rule they don't speak of what happened through those days. There might have been crying at some point (his) but Lex isn't sure and he doesn't remember that well.





	A matter of love

Lex drinks three days straight out of the bottle (bottles) after the they sign the divorce papers. Rony finds him by the fourth day, doesn't say anything at all, just sits at his side on the floor, their knees touching. 

It feels like comfort but it also feels like defeat. 

Afterwards (many, many months afterwards), as a rule they don't speak of what happened through those days. There might have been crying at some point (his) but Lex isn't sure and he doesn't remember that well.

He goes back to Canada, takes the C that his home team has been offering since forever -and doesn't cringe too hard when he gets asked (inevitably) about Zylen Clarke. 

Lex stays professional, says he thinks Zylen is doing alright, that he's a great player and that, the Caps have a great chance to making it to playoffs this year (as they always do). 

Lex answers some more questions and stops when one of the reporters asks… How's he taken the divorce? And… Are you single right now? 

(It was big news their marriage, and now their divorce is as well).

He doesn't answer anything to that. There's nothing to say, really. Management makes it end rather soon anyway, and Lex is left alone with his thoughts and his misery. 

The thing is, it doesn't get easier. Canada's cold all the time and he misses the sun, his old team in Washington and lot of things, he can't even bring himself to say -at least not oud loud. 

It turns out as Lex predicted, Zylen is having a great season -so good that he even has started dating again. A Russian model, an omega of a traditionalist house, tiny and blonde with a doll face and a big fame; Lex has only ever seen her in magazines. 

"Clarke seems to have a thing for difficult people," (a traditionalist omega) a reporter through Lex's TV says. "He has a type." (Wealthy.) Another answers. "He never learns," (Look what happened to him with Lex Durand.) A third one adds.

Lex doesn't think Zylen has type. Too many years knowing each other have made sure, he knows this kind of shit.

No, Zylen doesn't have a type, what he has is bitterness and weird sense of getting back as good as he got -not that he got anything, because no matter what Zylen thinks, Lex didn't do it.

But maybe he should do it now, get a new nice Canadian boy to look pretty clinging on his arm. Or maybe Zylen's fucking best friend.

He sighs at his own thoughts and shakes his head.  
It's not worth it. 

\---

Lex does start dating again, slowly -it's a hard process after being married for two years. 

The guys that are interested are athletes mostly, but not the hockey kind. Guys that are figure skaters, runners, swimmers -lithe and smeling of mating heat. Omega. Guys that are nice and Canadian (as it should always had been, his mom says); Guys who he has to bend at an awkward angle to kiss.

And the first time he does kiss one of them, he feels sick -because the size feels wrong, and the lips and the smell. 

It's awful, and Lex may have to accept he's not ready for casual dating yet. 

Still the news of his going out with another fellow Canadian athlete -go out fast. And there's nothing he can do or say to stop it. 

Soon enough there are rummors going around of him getting married (again) and 'We think he's finally got an omega knocked up.' and 'What Clarke could never give to him. It must burn.'

Then it gets said, his supposed future husband is having twins.

The night those news break, Lex gets a goal, two assists and a win for his team. He also gets three calls, one of his mom saying how proud she is of Lex's new boyfriend; one of his agent, asking if he has to negotiate paternity leave, and one of an unknown number. 

"Yes?" He answers in french, expecting some nonsense on his supposed 'Paternity'. Lex has heard so much of it this last few days, that it wouldn't surprise him.

It takes a while but after some minutes of silence, the person through the phone clears his throat and says in a steady tone. "Congratulations."

Lex swallows hard, he knows who the person is -would know that voice anywhere.

"Thank you," he says even though, there's nothing to celebrate. He is not having a baby with anyone and he doesn't have a boyfriend, and he's been miserable all this months without Zylen -but he will keep speaking bullshit if it means keeping Zylen talking to him.

(They spent so many days not talking to each other. So many days with Zylen refusing to talk to him.)

"How far along is your baby?" Zylen asks and Lex wants to laugh at the stupidity of all this. 

After all wasn't this, what started it?

Zylen's fucking obsession with a family -but for all the wrong reasons. Zylen's fucking obsession with the Durand legacy.

"I don't know," Lex says and fuck it.

"Lex?" 

"I don't fucking know and I don't care. I don't care for the Durand expectations and you shouldn't either."

"Lex," Zylen says. "Lexie, you are better than that."

"No, I am not." Lex never wanted to be a Durand, he didn't get to choose where to be born; but he can decide all the other things.

"There's no baby, Zylen," Lex says, a hand rubbing his face tiredly. "I just --fuck, I just want you back. Is that so bad?"

Zylen takes a sharp intake of breath. He doesn't answer anything for a while. "It doesn't work like that." Zylen says and Lex's heart breaks again, because no, to Zylen apparently it doesn't. 

In Zylen's mind it was probably never meant to be. 

"Lexie," Zylen repeats calmly and it burns like mother fucker. "You will do what you have to do."

Lex snorts. 

"You are an alpha--"

Lex interrupts him at that. "So are you."

Zylen takes a pained breath. "I'm not," 

Lex knows, this is another one of their issues -another reason for Zylen to want to be away. "You are an alpha,"

"Yeah biologically," Zylen says, disdain coloring his voice. "But what kind of alpha lets himself be fucked by another one?"

"It never was just fucking," Lex answers, patient. Two years ago, he brought a ring to prove it.

Zylen breath catches through the line -and Lex knows, he understands what Lex is trying to say. 

"I love you,"

Zylen doesn't answer anything to that. 

"Zylen," Lex starts not knowing where to go from there.

"I shouldn't have called you,"

"Probably not."

There are a thousand of things, they probably shouldn't have done -young, stupid and in love. 

"I will see you around," Zylen says and Lex knows it means: I hope I won't see you for a long, long time. 

"Yeah,"

\---

As far as faults can be placed, Lex accepts he didn't see it coming. Zylen being distant, busy, always busy -but then again you kind of always are busy with hockey- and finally taking off his ring. 

Lex didn't notice (or maybe he did) and dedicated his time to skate, to hockey, to his team -running drills again and again and again; until they were on the right track to playoffs. Until it felt like it mattered more than anything else. 

Lex saw the ring by the sink one day -and five days after when he dared to look again; it kept being there. Forever laughing at him in a simple silver band.

He should have asked.

He didn't. 

\---

It started when they were eight, and Zylen's Mother asked Lex's mother if she needed any help with babysitting her youngest child -they were neighbors. The big Durand household had been left behind in a fit of eccentricity of his parents, and for a year they had been renting an apartment in a normal neighborhood. 

Lex mother had been glowing with this new life and adventures. She had accepted Zylen's mom help without batting an eyelash, and after that both of them had become the best of friends. To this day Helen Durand still resents the fact, Lex's relationship with Zylen put a strain on her relationship with her best friend -and the fact that Zylen was born an alpha but she never says that out aloud.

After all, Lex's mother being the perfect omega wife, had been sick at the thought of a life with no grand children. 

Lex and Zylen had met then, talked and liked each other. They were kids and it was easy. They liked hockey, they liked bugs and girls made them green with nausea. They had only lived eight years and so far it had been very good.

Back then, there had been no worries of who was an alpha or a beta or an omega; or about the Durand legacy and money; the expectations on Lex's shoulders. Zylen's insecurities or his insomnia, his self-hatred -although Lex admits that may have been his fault; he should have thought of the consequences the first time he pushed Zylen down and fucked him senseless (not that Zylen protested that time, but the fact is, Lex should have thought of it.)

It's too late now. 

It's too late for many things actually. 

\---

"We are going out," Rony says, his tone of voice indicates there's no point in arguing. 

Lex knows why Rony is doing this, Rony is a good friend, a good A -but by the end of the night when the both of them get shit faced, Rony will have someone to come pick him up and take him home; Rony's partner, he's a beta just like Rony, a good guy; they have been together for five years, and Lex knows this thing they have is 'until death do us part and other shit' -the only difference is they are not married. Rony's lover is just too practical, too Russian, too fierce to play house, or so Rony says. 

Sometimes Lex evies him too much and that just makes him feel a shitty friend. 

"Nope," Lex sighs. "I'm staying home, eating ice cream and watching the Red Wedding on repeat tonight, and you can't do anything about it." 

Rony looks anything but impressed. "At least come have dinner with Vanya and I,"

Lex shakes his head. "Not tonight, but thanks," 

Rony's shoulders slump. "Fine,"

"You worry too much," 

"I worry enough," Rony huffs. 

"Thanks." Lex says and smiles -and that's that.

\---

It was two years. It was two years he knew joy without any taint over it -until it crumbled in his nose at the very end. 

Lex is not cynical enough to say he wouldn't do it again, even knowing how it ended. For Zylen he would do anything, and well, that may never change. 

It was nice, the domesticity; having a home and not just a house. Zylen had been quite obsessive with decoration, with how it had to be absolutely perfect, and even though Lex didn't see merit in it -years and years of living in the Durand state, with its many decorations had made him insensitive to that kind of shit- he let Zylen fill their house with whatever took his eye, some being weird and useless shit, even brought stuff Zylen could like to decorate and gave it to him. 

Just to make Zylen happy. 

Always to make him happy. Maybe Lex tried to hard on this, maybe he didn't try hard enough -whatever the answer, the truth remains he failed at both. 

Lex sighs; he didn't have practice today. A rare day off.

The apartment looks cold, impersonal -out of a designers magazine picture. It just makes him miss home more, but that's not new -he misses home and Zylen every day. 

They didn't sell the house. Lex gifted his part to Zylen without a fight. It seemed like the right choice at that moment.

Lex looks at the phone on the table; he's been stopping himself from calling all morning, but he doesn't have any self control left. 

Lex takes the phone and calls the number registered as unknown from some days ago. 

He doesn't expect Zylen to pick up, really, only hope is what keeps him glued to his phone waiting…

Lex sighs again and he is about to hang up when he hears a quiet, "Hello,"

It's a small victory. It's a start.

**Author's Note:**

> For now a one-shot, but who knows, it may be more later.


End file.
